


(Promises Are Made) If You Just Hold On

by RedTeamShark



Series: American Beauty/American Psycho [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Affection Starved Bucky Barnes, Alpha!Steve, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Omega!Bucky, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic To Romantic Relationship, Trauma, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23431117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: Steve calls it acompromise. Bucky calls themrulesand, sometimes in his head,orders.--They're working on it. Bucky knows that Steve isn't a mind reader, but life would be so much easier if he didn't have totalkto the other man about his problems. Life would also be a lot easier if his past would stop showing up to haunt him, in dreams and during waking hours.(Civil War? I think you mean Domestic Dispute. Work in progress, currently only 1 chapter available.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: American Beauty/American Psycho [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1461979
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	(Promises Are Made) If You Just Hold On

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally meant to be a full work running along with the other stories in part 3, but man, winter was rough on my writing brain so I only ever got one chapter done. I'll at least post this, so that you can all shame me into finishing it maybe.
> 
> This story starts at the same time as "(May Nothing But) Death Do Us Part" and chapter 9 of "They Might Be Your Wounds (But They're My Sutures)"

Steve calls it a _compromise_. Bucky calls them _rules_ and, sometimes in his head, _orders_.

He usually wakes up first, and he lies in bed with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling until Steve’s light snoring eases and fades to nothing. On occasion he’ll wake up and the sound is already gone, replaced with steady breathing that means Steve is awake first. They only get up and start their day when they’re both awake. Bucky gets less confused, then.

Steve doesn’t touch him unless Bucky initiates it. He’ll worm under the Alpha’s arm, or grab Steve’s hand and place it on his knee while they’re sitting next to each other, or just lean himself bodily into the other man until more of his weight is on Steve’s body than his own. This lack of initiation is slowly driving him up the wall because he’s not always sure that his demands are _welcome_ , but that’s another one of their rules.

Compromises.

Whatever.

If he has a problem, he’s supposed to _talk_ about it now. Bucky struggles with this one the most, with voicing the little things that are wrong. He wasn’t allowed to have _problems_ before. Those were _malfunctions_ and at the best of times meant _maintenance_. Steve won’t subject him to that, his rational brain says over and over, but the deep-rooted psychological trauma that has become his primary defense mechanism disagrees. 

And thus, he’s sitting across from Natasha, drinking tea and watching her slowly unravel the string of her teabag as she contemplates the heap of issues he’s just dumped on her. After a casual invitation to lunch, no less. She’s not his psychiatrist. Nor his psychologist. He’s barely sure if she qualifies as a friend.

“What happened the last time he touched you without you initiating it?” She twirls a thread around her finger, her eyes on him.

“Well…” Bucky flexes his metal fingers at his side and tries not to see the splash of blood across the ground. Steve had clapped him on the shoulder and he’d sort of freaked out. Like, a lot.

“That bad?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“And he hasn’t touched you since?” She finally pulls the thread free, lies it down carefully on the table and starts on another. 

Bucky shakes his head. “He has. This morning he helped me stretch out after a run. But I asked him to. He won’t touch me unless I touch him first or… or ask him to. And it’s not like he’s scared of me.” The words aren’t as confident as he wants them to be, another creeping fear seizing his heart. “He doesn’t want to set me off, I get it. _I_ don’t want to set me off. But…” His gaze drops, his cheeks miserably warm. “But I like it when he touches me.”

“You know.” Natasha gives up mutilating her teabag and takes a drink. “I once almost broke Clint’s hand because he shook my shoulder to wake me up. This wasn’t back when we first met. It was maybe two years ago. Sometimes we get set off. It’s how you handle it afterwards that matters.”

“What happened?” He doesn’t know Clint well, but he knows that the man is an archer, that he needs both his hands in working order to fight properly.

“I realized what happened, let him go, apologized. He apologized. Now if he needs to wake me up, he’ll call my name. It hadn’t ever been a problem before, Clint and I are…” Her tongue flicks out briefly. “ _Aware_ of each other. Maybe it wouldn’t ever be a problem again, but we changed so we don’t have to test it.”

It makes sense to him. He wants Steve to touch him. He sometimes gets set off by being touched unexpectedly. He sometimes doesn’t know what’s a good touch and what’s going to hurt. 

He still doesn’t want to have to talk to Steve about it.

Natasha raises an eyebrow, tapping her blunt fingernails against the tabletop. “How’s the new arm feeling?”

He’s grateful for the subject change, slides more easily into the new conversation. The worry still gnaws at the back of his brain, but it can live back there for a while. He puts a lot of things back there, not all of them stay.

* * *

Call him whatever names seem fitting and Steve will probably accept it… Unless he’s called oblivious. Which is the funniest thing Bucky’s heard in seventy-odd years, because Steven Grant Rogers is the _definition_ of oblivious.

He leans his chin into Steve’s shoulder, giving a little sigh at having to raise onto his toes to do so. “They coulda at least kept you shorter than me. Or made me taller.” Joking about the fucked up things Hydra did to him doesn’t usually make Steve laugh, but sue him gallows humor has a place.

“Hey, Buck.” Steve’s hand moves carefully up from where he’s stirring their dinner--something warm and brothy in a pot on the stove--and clearly telegraphs as he reaches up to stroke Bucky’s hair. “Good time with Natasha?”

“I like her. She doesn’t bullshit.” He strains up another half-inch and presses his lips to the side of Steve’s neck. Affection, invitation for more. “You need any help with dinner?”

“Soup’s almost ready, but I could stand to have someone slice the bread up while I stir. Just don’t get crumbs all over the counter.” Steve’s hand strokes the side of his face again before he lowers it, goes back to the pot.

Bucky sticks his tongue out just because he fucking can, stepping away and getting the loaf of bread, the long serrated bread knife that goes with it. He’s fine with knives. Today he is, at least. In fact, today he’s feeling pretty good about just about everything in his fucked up little life, so he lets his mouth run while he slowly turns the thick crusted bread into manageable slices. 

“We talked about my new arm. S’weird, you know, ‘cause it’s so much lighter than the old one. And we talked about what she’s gonna get Clint’s kid for its-- _his_ birthday. She spoils that kid worse than anyone I’ve ever heard of.”

“Guess you never heard of how your mom spoiled you,” Steve snorts behind him, turning off the stove and getting out bowls.

He wipes the crumbs from the counter into his cupped hand and dumps them into the sink, pausing to give Steve a gentle punch on the arm. “I turned out okay in the end, punk.” He waits, holds his breath for a second, but Steve doesn’t rise to the challenge, doesn’t return the playfully rough contact. Dammit.

“C’mon, let’s eat outside before the sun goes down and it gets cold.”

Fuck him, he’s going to have to _talk_ about it. Bucky brings the bread and joins Steve out on the balcony, his eyes tracking over the city around them. Wakanda is incredible. Even living here for close to a year, he has a hard time convincing himself it’s not a science fiction set. Steve gives their surroundings the same awed looks, when he thinks Bucky isn’t watching.

He waits until their bowls are empty, until they’re both nibbling on bread crusts and watching the sun set, before he leans his head onto Steve’s shoulder. The words he wants to put to this problem are drying up in his throat, and his left fist clenches on his knee unconsciously. “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“So y’know how--”

Something vibrates and they both jump, Steve pulling his phone from his pocket with a quick apologetic look. He holds it to his ear, listens for a moment with a growing frown, then glances at Bucky and mouths ‘sorry’ before going inside.

When he comes back out, he’s geared up, in full Captain America mode. “Romanoff is picking me up in five, we’re wheels up at the airstrip in fifteen. She’s been following a trail on Rumlow and we’re pretty sure we know where he’s going to hit next.”

Bucky closes his eyes for a moment, nodding slowly. “Okay. Yeah, I got it. Need any back up?”

He doesn’t have to see Steve’s frown, he can hear it. “We’re bringing Sam and Wanda over from the States, the four of us should be able to handle it.” And Rumlow was a handler, Rumlow might know some trigger phrase to set Bucky off and turn it into a bloodbath--he doesn’t need to say those things, they’re both thinking them.

“Where are you going?”

“Bucky…”

He stands up, moving closer, getting into Steve’s space. “I wanna know where all the stupid is gonna be.”

“Right here, with you.” A smile flashes across Steve’s face, his hand lifting for a moment before he quickly drops it back to his side. “Nigeria. Lagos. But I’m serious, the four of us can handle it. We wanna take him alive, if we can. Find out what he knows about any Hydra cells that are left out there.”

Bucky gives up, wraps Steve in a hug and relaxes into it as it’s finally returned, as Steve finally _touches_ him. He breathes slowly, keeps his tone light and even. “Don’t expect me to wait up for you.”

“Don’t expect me to come home early, then.” Steve grins for a moment, his hand moving up, thumb brushing Bucky’s cheekbone, before he’s all business again. “I don’t think I’ll be more than a week. I’ll call you if I get held up.”

He sees Steve to the door, waves to Natasha and then closes it between them as she leaves. Bucky leans against it, exhaling slowly.

He has an appointment with his psychiatrist in the morning about medication and one with his psychologist in the afternoon about the nightmares and he painstakingly sends text messages to both of them canceling. Then he grabs the go bag Steve doesn’t know he keeps under the deck, the rifle with it, and the tranquilizer rounds. 

By the time anyone knows he’s gone, Bucky is in another country. 


End file.
